Virtual worlds, such as the so called “Second Life” created by Linden Labs, is a 3D-world with inhabitants called avatars being able to create and build things. Such a world does not exist in the physical world. The world is structured in “islands” and the avatars can move internal and external to the islands.
To help visitors to find a certain destination in the virtual world, land owners often use a so-called teleport. A teleport can be described as the interaction of an avatar with a teleport station (i.e., teleport source station) in the virtual world, which brings the avatar to a predefined location, the teleport target location. Examples of such teleport source stations are simulated elevators, floors, or special rooms in a building and dedicated areas on a parcel of land. Whatever mechanism the teleport function uses, the coordinates for the teleport target location are statically provisioned inside the teleport source station. During build and change activities, the target coordinate of a teleport target station may become invalid and need to be updated.
In WO 00/70489 A1 a method and apparatus are disclosed for providing hotspots, e.g., teleports, in a virtual world. An avatar can be moved from one location to another when the avatar interacts with a hotspot, e.g., by walking through the hotspot. The hotspot contains a link which is the coordinate of the particular teleport target station.
If the number of teleport source stations and teleport target locations increases, the effort to maintain the coordinates in a teleport network increases and it may be very complex to verify that all teleport source stations are provisioned with the right target location coordinates of the respective target station.